A new Tropical Smoothie cafe in Little Rock's Riverdale neighborhood was built backward on purpose because it was the only design that fits the small piece of property while still including a drive-thru, those behind the project said Thursday.
"Aesthetically, it might look funny, but, hey, if it looks funny and attracts customers, that's still good," said Chris Kramolis, area developer for Tropical Smoothie in Arkansas.
The back of the building faces Rebsamen Park Road eastward near its intersection with Old Cantrell Road and has a tight driveway for to-go orders.
The cafe takes the place once held by the four-bay Bullard's Car Wash, whose owners also have Bullard's Liquor Store across Old Cantrell Road. Bullard's owners struck a "ground-lease" deal with Blue Whale LLC of Little Rock. Blue Whale is leasing the property to Jigna Patel, the Tropical Smoothie franchise operator.
"There were issues of 'stacking' -- keeping cars from lining out from the drive-thru into the street -- so the building had to be flipped, so to speak," Kramolis said. "We could have done it a different way, but we wouldn't have had a drive-thru. Our customers really like a drive-thru."
The drive-thru, for now, is a very cramped one, even with the place not up and running.
A member of an electrical crew working there Wednesday politely declined a reporter's request to take his his large, company-owned pickup on a test run through the drive-thru."If it were my truck, yeah," he said, "but it's not."
A Ford Fusion, with an excellent and patient driver, made it through without scraping tires against newly poured curbs that, while still white, showed marks where rubber met the concrete.
"I have a Tahoe, and it was a little tight getting through there," said Eddie Bailey, a member of the Blue Whale investment team. "I imagine you'd have a lot more trouble in a truck with an extended cab.
"We're going to widen the driveway a bit," Bailey said. "It has already been approved by the city."
As for the building itself: "We had 0.27 acre to work with," Bailey said, emphasizing "point," as in slightly more than a quarter of an acre.
"We were really limited in what we could do," he said. "The only way to do it without the stacking of traffic was that one particular design."
The lot is zoned commercial and doesn't have any design overlay requirements, Dana Carney, a manager in Little Rock's Planning and Development Department, said.
The project, with small changes, made it past the Board of Adjustment, the City Beautiful Commission and city codes, Carney said.
Motorists pulling into the property will take a hard right to get to either side of a concrete island that will support a menu board. Carney said "double stacking" of cars at a single ordering station is nothing new for fast-food customers in Little Rock and shouldn't be a problem.
"We don't see it has a high-traffic generator in the same mode as most fast-food places, but we did want to make sure there was sufficient room," he said.
There is a parking lot for 10 cars on the building's north side for dine-in customers.
"Once the signage is up, in my opinion, nobody will think the building is backwards," Bailey said.
Business on 09/02/2016